


Naruto Collection

by KlayterMcCabe



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, OT3
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-20
Updated: 2016-02-24
Packaged: 2017-12-15 15:18:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/851036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KlayterMcCabe/pseuds/KlayterMcCabe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All of the Naruto fanfiction I wrote from 2005-2006.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Background Music [Team Ten Gen]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Ten is nothing but background music, one-trick ponies, average genin who will eventually make less-than-average chūnin who will die doing some shit mission that falls to them because all the important shinobi are busy.

Shikamaru is annoyed that Asuma's cigarette is always there, hanging out of the corner of his mouth.

He is annoyed by Ino's constant, stupid enthusiasm, and her lack of ability to back up her threats and shouts.

He is even annoyed by Chouji's constant munching and snacking and chewing and crunching and lip-smacking.

Sometimes, when he can bring up enough emotion to care at all, he hates his team.

So he's smarter than most everyone. So what? So he can beat his opponents if he has time to think, and the resources to draw on. But his mind is limited by his body, ten thousand plots and strategies that he is incapable of carrying out because he lacks the speed and strength and power.

All of Ino's fire and passion and enthusiasm and downright idiocy wasted, because she was not born into a clan like Uchiha or Hyuuga and doesn't stand a chance against anyone who was.

All of Chouji's smiles and quiet comments and the strange things he sometimes whispers in Shikamaru's ear will someday be gone, because Chouji thinks he is a ninja, and he will pay for that dream with his life.

Shikamaru is angry because Asuma is a first-rate fighter, but a third-rate shougi player and a second-rate teacher, and all four of them know it. Why waste talented instructors on middle-of-the-road genin? Team ten is currently average, but Shikamaru knows that they will soon be left behind. Prodigies like Sasuke and Neji, the dead-fucking determined like Lee, even an idiot like Naruto who runs on will alone—they all have a capacity for improvement that his team lacks.

Team ten is nothing but background music, one-trick ponies, average genin who will eventually make less-than-average chuunin who will die doing some shit mission that falls to them because all the important shinobi are busy.

Shikamaru doesn't want to die in the dirt someday, because he's running on caffeine pills and no sleep and makes one stupid mistake. Worse still, he doesn't want it to be Ino or Chouji limp on the ground, because they trust his strategies and do what he says.

He wants to lie in the grass and watch the clouds, wants Chouji to give up training and instead get a part-time job at a yakiniku place where he can eat for free, wants Ino to forget her stupid competition with Sakura over Sasuke-who-will-never-care. They could have lives, couldn't they? Normal, average lives where no one expects them to be ninja, expects them to be tools.

But even with his goddamn super-genius IQ, Shikamaru can't see a way for that to work. None of them were born into Konoha's best shinobi clans, but they were born in Konoha, and all of their families have a history of serving. Family history and family future seem to be more or less the same thing, so Shikamaru does what a Nara should, and that is fight. Even if they walked out now, if all three of them just left—well, everyone knows what happens to missing-nin. Maybe Neji is right in his quiet, bitter mutterings about fate and the way of the world. Maybe the board was set a long time ago, and they're just playing out their roles, waiting for whatever happens next.

It won't be glorious.

Shikamaru knows that his role of knowing is never glorious, that Chouji's Meat Tank isn't something that anybody will ever write ballads about, that Ino will just fade as the hundredth kunoichi infatuated with Uchiha fucking Sasuke. They're just mediocre shinobi in a village that raises heroes.

Sometimes Shikamaru is so sick of being a loser.

Why bother?

000

March 28, 2005


	2. Or Progress [Kakashi on Team Seven]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sakura is weak. Naruto is stupid. Sasuke is a tool. Kakashi worries about his team.

If Kakashi allowed himself the luxury of worry, he would worry about the members of his team. All three of them have very different problems: Sakura is weak. Naruto is stupid. Sasuke is a tool.

They have very different goals: Sakura wants Sasuke, Naruto wants friendship and respect, and Sasuke wants to kill people. Very specific people. Fortunately, for shinobi, these are more or less acceptable goals. Naruto and Sakura's are weak, but only because they are young. Sakura's crush could yet grow into an obsession nasty enough to be worthy of a ninja, and Naruto's rambling about becoming Hokage—which really just means that someday he expects the entire _village_ to be his friend—carries a hint of greatness.

Sometimes, Kakashi's genin make him smile.

Mostly, they make him want to beat his head into a wall. When the urge gets too strong, there's always _Icha Icha Paradise_. The expressions on his students' faces when he ignores them to read erotica mean that they must be getting a vague idea about how he feels towards life most of the time. It's ridiculous, insulting, and rather porny.

Well, not as porny as he'd like.

If Kakashi allowed himself the luxury of worry, he would worry about the members of his team. They're his first genin students, and he doesn't know what the hell he's doing. Mentally he compares himself to the Yondaime, and he always comes up wanting. Kakashi wants to mold team seven into perfect soldiers, as if he could make them strong enough to not feel pain.

Well.

That's a stupid goal, isn't it?

Neither he nor the Yondaime could protect Obito, and inevitably he'll fail to protect this team in turn. When he does fail, will they be able to handle themselves?

Probably not. Sakura will be weak, Naruto will be stupid, and Sasuke... Well, Sasuke has so far based his life entirely around what other people expect him to become, so it will depend on the situation, won't it?

Kakashi remembers Itachi. He was a quiet man (because you can't ever really call someone like that a boy), a cold man, a very focused man. Very bound into the labyrinth politics of his clan. Kakashi was just as surprised as the next man to hear that the entire Uchiha clan had been wiped out.

It was Sasuke's survival of the incident that unnerved Kakashi. The Uchiha had been a very... thorough people. Itachi more than most. And now Sasuke follows the path laid out for him and doesn't even realize that he's only acting out his role. First for his brother, now for Orochimaru, maybe just for anyone who wants to play.

Sometimes, even more than Naruto, Sasuke is stupid.

Naruto.

Well.

Who would've thought that the Kyuubi, a murderous, marauding beast, would be bound inside such an idiot ball of sunshine?

But Naruto had to be an idiot ball of sunshine, or there would have been no balance. What if Kyuubi had been bound up in someone like Sasuke, for instance? The hunter-nin would certainly be busy.

Did the Yondaime know how strong Naruto's soul was when he bound the Kyuubi to it, or did Naruto just grow that way out of necessity?

Sometimes, when Naruto has a rare silent moment, he looks like the Yondaime.

If Kakashi allowed himself the luxury of worry, he would worry about the members of his team. They're part of something. He can feel it. The way that the Yondaime was always where he needed to be, the way that Jiraiya feels more connected to the world than most, the way that Orochimaru hummed with sinister power as he stood just outside Kakashi's circle of candles, looming over Sasuke and laughing.

It's in Sakura too, and that somehow surprises him. Naruto and Sasuke are different. Sakura is just a girl. A normal kunoichi. He keeps waiting for Naruto and Sasuke to surpass her entirely.

They have, in power. But not control.

Sakura holds their red threads, which bind them to her, to him, to each other, to the something that they're destined for. Because it would be hard to miss. Jiraiya carting Naruto around like a pet, then teaching him something as powerful as Rasengen. Sasuke with his head bowed, the seal standing out in stark relief against his paper pale skin.

Two out of three. How long will Sakura have to wait for her member of the legendary Sannin?

Does history always repeat itself?

Kakashi worries about his team.

 

000

May 11, 2005


	3. Anti-Heroic [Team Ten Gen]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The chūnin exams are coming, and even if Team Ten makes it, they'll just be the weakest chūnin team instead of the weakest genin, taking missions they're not ready for.

It is Yamanaka Ino's fault that team ten will be participating in the upcoming chuunin exams. Shikamaru, as always, would be perfectly content with mediocrity. Chouji wants to prove himself, but he's self-aware enough to know that he's not strong enough yet. Ino, however, doesn't know the meaning of the word "restraint."

"We _have_ to do it!" she says.

Shikamaru rolls his eyes. "We don't _have_ to do anything but breathe."

"See, that's the _exact_ lazy attitude that's always pulling you down. If you would just put some _work_ into your training–"

"If I would just put some work into my training, I'd still be a crap shinobi. Save it, Ino."

Team ten is sitting together after training, eating dango and drinking cold, bitter tea. Asuma-sensei says that it's important for the three of them to bond outside of training. Shikamaru would not call this "bonding."

Ino waves her dango stick at Chouji. There are still two dumplings still on it. "What about you, Akimichi?" Her voice has gone slightly menacing. "Don't you want to prove that you're not–" she stops herself before calling him a fatty– "that you're not what everyone says you are?"

Chouji looks from Ino's narrowed eyes to Shikamaru's bored expression and the angle at which he rests his chin in his palm. His first loyalty is to Shikamaru, always, but he's too wise to want to cross Ino when she's obviously in the mood to pummel someone into submission. He pops his last dango into his mouth and says something unintelligible.

Shikamaru smirks and offers Chouji a smile, but Ino is not amused. "Why did I get stuck with you two?" she bursts out angrily. "Sakura is with _Sasuke_ -kun, and I get you two _lumps_."

"Yeah," points out Chouji, "but Sakura is also stuck with Uzumaki."

Shikamaru nods. He _likes_ Naruto, sure, but he wouldn't want the guy to have his back during a mission.

Ino's lips are thin. "I'd _rather_ be stuck with Uzumaki Naruto than you two! Chouji, all you do is eat, and Shikamaru, you're the laziest bastard I've ever met!"

She wants it so bad. To beat Sakura, to win Sasuke, to prove that kunoichi aren't second-class ninja. She wants it so bad that Shikamaru forgives her for her harsh words.

Chouji looks down at the table and says nothing. Ino has turned her face away from them to seethe. Shikamaru looks from one to the other, then stands up. He offers a half-hearted "gochisousama" and throws his empty dango stick away.

"Well," he lies, "I gotta get going. Things to do."

"Yeah," sneers Ino. "Things."

Shikamaru ignores her and smiles at Chouji. "See you tomorrow."

Chouji nods and offers a weak smile in return. "Yeah."

Shikamaru walks off with his hands stuffed in his pockets. He is not entirely surprised when he feels Ino walking up behind him halfway to his house.

"Why do you do that?" she snaps.

He shrugs. "Do what?"

"You _coddle_ Chouji. He's as grown-up as we are, you know. And he _is_ fat and he _is_ weak and you go on as if those things don't matter. They'll get him killed someday."

Shikamaru turns and has the odd desire to snarl at her. He's not sure if it's because what she says is wrong, or if it's because he's afraid it's true.

"Chouji isn't weak. He's one of the strongest genin I know."

Is he lying? He's not sure. The Chouji who told him about the Houren Pills with such a sober expression is a very different Chouji from the boy who stole his last dango not five minutes ago.

"I know Chouji's your friend, okay? I know that. But you need to face up to the fact that if he doesn't seriously improve himself, he _is_ going to die on a mission one of these days."

"I know that!" Shikamaru's volume surprises both of them. He takes that anger and pushes it in and away, until his face is blank and his voice is calm. "But Chouji _is_ strong. A lot more than you know." His lip curls a little bit, involuntarily. "Anyway, it's not like you even _notice_ anything that's not Uchiha Sasuke or Haruno Sakura. You wanna run off and take this exam just because _they're_ doing it, but you're not considering the fact that we're not up to that standard. If we go, we're going to be the weakest team out there. Screw missions, some people die taking the _exam_. And even if we make it, so what? We'll just be the weakest chuunin team then, taking missions we're not ready for. Way to think things through, Ino."

"Stop thinking like that, Shikamaru!" Unlike him, Ino makes no attempt to hold back her anger. "We're not as weak as you think we are!"

He wonders how she's switched from saying that Chouji could die easily on a mission to calling their team "strong."

"I mean, we won't know if we don't try! And…" her volume drops, and she sounds almost _anguished_. "And aren't you sick of being weak?"

He is. He is. He is. But that doesn't change anything. "Why is this so important to you?" he asks finally.

"Because I don't want to lose." She looks at him with her straight blue eyes. He thinks:

Ino is pretty, but not in a lasting or legendary kind of way.

Ino is funny, but (despite popular opinion) understands that sometimes things get serious.

Ino is bossy and kind of pushy, but it's because she cares and just happens to think that she knows best.

Ino is aggressive, but she's a _kunoichi_ , and that's not the kind of occupation that inspires properly feminine docility.

Sometimes he wonders if it's not Sakura that Ino's been chasing all this time, Uchiha Sasuke be damned. Not that he would ever say it aloud.

"Chouji will listen to you," Ino is saying. "We've all got to agree to take it, and if you want to, Chouji will do it too. Please. Shikamaru, please."

He says, "We could die."

"We're shinobi, Shikamaru. We should be proud to die like that."

He says, "We're weak."

"But we're getting stronger. Don't you _want_ to get stronger?"

He opens his mouth, then closes it again. He wants to say, _but what if it's you that dies, but if what if it's Chouji, what about when it hurts, what about the fact that I'm_ afraid _, what about when we lose_. Instead he says, "It doesn't really matter. Even if we try. Even if we make it. We'll stay weak."

Ino spits on his shoe. "You can think that if you want, Nara. But you _never_ say that aloud to me again. We're Konoha shinobi. That means everything."

Shikamaru wonders how she can see the world like that. He looks at her clear, angry, determined eyes. Ino doesn't think that they're permanent losers, that pain is something to be afraid of, that death is worth running from.

He wonders when she got so strong.

He swallows the lump in his throat. "Tomorrow," he offers.

"Tomorrow?" Her voice is mistrustful.

"Tomorrow I'll talk to Chouji. And we'll get Asuma-sensei to sign us up for the exam."

Ino looks as triumphant as though Sasuke has just asked her for her hand in marriage, but her voice is soft. "Thank you."

Shikamaru shrugs and does not say _you're welcome_. Instead, he keeps his face very serious. "Just make sure that when you fight Sakura, you don't let up."

She gives him a bewildered look. "Why would I go easy on that wide-foreheaded freak?" She pauses. "And I probably won't even fight her, anyway."

"Probably not," Shikamaru agrees.

She looks at him. "You're a strange guy."

"I know."

Then she steps up and pulls him into a hug, sharp and strong and so brief that it's over almost before he has the chance to wrap his arms around the small of her back in return.

She smells like pennyroyal.

Then Ino walks away, and Shikamaru has until tomorrow to think of all the reasons why he's an idiot.

000

Weeks later, Ino's smile is bittersweet when she kisses Shikamaru on the cheek to congratulate him on making his way to the final part of the exam. The expression on her face when she woke to find that she and Sakura had both lost was the same way.

The face of the girl from the Sound Village was blank after she hit the wall. Shikamaru supposes that she'll hate him when she wakes up, for making her lose so unspectacularly.

His first opponent in the last part of the exam will be a girl, too.

He wonders why his life is ruled by women.

Chouji just grins at him, though. It's a relief. Chouji has that giggle, that's triumphant and somewhat like a little boy and somewhat like a man. He gives Shikamaru a thumbs up and then beams as proudly as though he'd just won it all himself.

Hanging out with Chouji isn't like hanging out with anyone else. There's no competition, no trying to figure things out, no complicated tangles. There's sitting, and sometimes talking, and sometimes eating, and sometimes they just run.

Chouji isn't fast, but he can keep going long after Shikamaru has slumped against a tree, panting for breath.

Asuma-sensei tells them that if they're going to hang out so often, they should spend more of their time training, but they almost never do. Training is dirty, in a way. In a way, it's perfect and cool and strong and right and everything that it should be.

In a way, it's just getting tired and muddy and learning new methods to kill people.

Instead, he and Chouji make trips to the conbini to buy shrimp chips and triangles of rice wrapped in sashimi and cans of milk jasmine tea. Sometimes they flip through the magazines, fingering the pages of the softcore porn with a kind of reverence.

Shikamaru tries to compare the ladies in the magazines to the girls and women and kunoichi that he knows, and decides that they must belong to different species.

He tries to picture Ino spread out like the girls in the pictures, and it does work and it doesn't. He can see her long hair spilled out over the pillows, the inside of her pale arm stretched along the bed, white sheets covering and then revealing her depending on what he's thinking at the time. But Ino has scars, which the girls in the pictures never do, and he doesn't think that Ino would ever wear that expression on her face. That blank, mouth a little bit open, waiting and _wanting_ expression.

He figures, if Ino wanted something, she'd take it.

Sometimes a weird thought jumps into his head, like that idiot Naruto naked, or Hyuuga Neji, because he looks a lot like a girl anyway.

He wonders who Chouji thinks about it, or if it's just the girls from the pages and nothing else, but he never asks.

It must be weird for girls, not to have anything between their legs. Then again, it's probably more convenient to have it all tucked inside like that. He wouldn't want to, though. It'd be weird.

Does everybody else think weird things too?

He's read books on the mental and physical development of adolescent males, and scrolls that detail the preferred training methods for genin of their age. The information is good to know (information is always good to know) but it doesn't help as much as he'd have liked.

When Chouji is in the hospital recovering from his brief fight with Kinuta Dosu of the Sound Nin, Shikamaru takes him a basket of fruit.

In a very miserable voice, Chouji informs Shikamaru that he isn't allowed to eat solid food yet, and accuses Shikamaru half-heartedly of mocking him for it.

Shikamaru has a brief image of Chouji posed like a baby bird, with himself pre-chewing food and spitting it into the other boy's mouth. It is not the first time he's had to wonder if part of being so smart is being a little bit crazy.

He sits on the edge of Chouji's bed for a long time, and they talk. It starts out with the exams they just finished, of course, and then moves on to more normal things.

Chouji's voice grows quiet, and he gestures Shikamaru close.

"I like Hyuuga Hinata," he says simply.

Ridiculously, Shikamaru feels betrayed. As if Chouji should have consulted him before getting a crush.

"Are you going to tell her?" he asks.

Chouji shakes his head. What girl would date a fat ninja?

"I don't know," says Shikamaru after a moment. "Dating a kunoichi seems like too much trouble."

Chouji grins. "You think dating _anyone_ would be too much trouble."

Shikamaru shrugs and wonders if this is true. He doesn't have time to ponder it, though, because Chouji is grinning again.

"You don't have time for girls, right now. You've got to worry about the last part of the chuunin exam." Unlike Ino, there isn't even a trace of jealousy in Chouji's voice.

"Meh." Shikamaru throws his hands wide. "It'll be a hassle, but if all else fails, I've got a full-proof strategy."

Chouji rolls his eyes. "Giving up isn't really a strategy, Shika."

Shikamaru throws his nose into the air. "I make it into an art form."

Chouji giggles. Or is it a chuckle?

"About the exam," says Chouji, sotto voce. "I made you a good-luck gift. But it's kind of girly." Curious, Shikamaru only shrugs. They're ninja; they don't need to prove their masculinity to anybody.

Well, except maybe Ino.

Chouji looks from side to side, as though someone would bother to spy on them. Then he reaches into his pocket and pulls something out, hiding it between his palms.

Shikamaru holds out his hand. Chouji's are large and thick and pale, by comparison Shikamaru's is thin and long-fingered and dark. Feminine, if not for the covering of calluses.

Chouji drops an origami butterfly into Shikamaru's palm. The paper is silver and pale blue and iridescent, and the wings are long and slender and creased.

Shikamaru does not say _thank you_ or _it's beautiful_ or _I don't understand but I'm glad_ , because Chouji knows already. The significance of butterflies to Chouji is not something that the two of them have ever discussed. What would talking about it do? It just is.

"When you fight," Chouji begins, then pauses. "When you give up," he says instead, "wait until you're sure. Don't do it too early."

"Maybe I won't give up at all," says Shikamaru, but they both know that he's lying. He's outclassed. By every single genin remaining he is outclassed, and when Shikamaru knows that he can't win, he doesn't bother to keep fighting. It's something that Ino doesn't understand; that Asuma-sensei looks upon with contempt. Only Chouji shrugs and takes it for what it's worth.

It just means that Shikamaru's a lazy bastard. That's all.

He cradles the paper butterfly in his hand. This is Chouji's version of Ino's kiss on his cheek.

He hopes that he lives up to both of them.

000

May 12, 2005


	4. Bring on the Rain [Naruto & Kyuubi]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kyuubi likes anything big, anything powerful, anything with the will to destroy. Storms call out to it, and Kyuubi calls back with this furious keening in a pitch so high that it probably doesn't exist outside of Naruto's head.

Naruto is happiest in thunderstorms. Iruka-sensei used to yell at him for it, when he'd show up late to school (if he showed up at all) dripping wet and freezing cold and absolutely manic. ****

It's not really something he can point to with any precision, but when the rain comes down hard and sounds like little pebbles against the roof of his shitty apartment, Naruto feels like he  _belongs_.

It's a sad sort of belonging, because he doesn't know how to share it with anyone.

Iruka-sensei is who he usually shares things with – talking things, at least – because even though the words stumble over each other when they're coming out of his mouth, Iruka-sensei cares about what they are. Naruto doesn't much  _like_  talking, because talking doesn't  _do_  anything and he's not very good at it anyway, but sometimes it's still nice, to know that he's not just yammering to himself anymore.

But Iruka-sensei is very practical, in a way that makes no sense whatsoever to Naruto. And so, to Iruka-sensei, running around the forest outside the walls and climbing trees in a thunderstorm is a  _very bad idea_. He's right, probably (Iruka-sensei is almost always  _right_ ), but he'd also be missing the point, and Naruto doesn't have the words to explain it to him.

So even though Naruto cares about Iruka-sensei a lot – loves him, even, but thinking that word makes his stomach twist up funny inside and he wouldn't ever say it out loud – he doesn't go to Iruka-sensei's apartment when it's raining.

Sometimes Kiba goes storm-jumping with him. They wrestle in the rain and eventually go home covered in mud, and Kiba and Akamaru make Naruto smell like wet dog. When Kiba gets home, though, his mother and his older sister yell at him if he tracks mud everywhere (and Kiba's mother is  _scary_ ). Naruto, who has always done his own laundry and never understood why having mud everywhere was a problem; he is contemptuous every time Kiba won't go out and play because he doesn't want to get into trouble.

Okay.

So saying Naruto doesn't have anyone to share the rain with is wrong, because he has  _someone_  he can share everything with, only Kyuubi isn't so much a someone as just this giant force inside of himself that  _burns_  with the fierceness of its existence being diminished.

It's Kyuubi's fault that Naruto likes storms, anyway.

Kyuubi likes anything big, anything powerful, anything with the will to destroy. Storms call out to it, and Kyuubi calls back with this furious keening in a pitch so high that it probably doesn't exist outside of Naruto's head.

He and Kyuubi don't  _hate_  each other exactly, so much as there's just this enormous gulf between them that neither of them could ever cross, would ever cross even if it was possible. They change each other all the time, merging in ways that Ero-sennin desperately tries to stop while wearing his most casual face.

They'll never be the same, though. Ero-sennin doesn't understand that they could  _never_  be the same.

Naruto is a boy. A human boy who's only just now getting to be not the-shortest-kid-in-class.

Kyuubi is a monster, a force, an elemental. It's as old as the sky and vicious with the taste of millennia of victories and defeats.

These two things will never change, but sometimes they bleed together. When Naruto's eyes go red – a brighter and more vibrant red than Sasuke's – he wields a power that no man, much less a child, was meant to wield.

And trapped inside Naruto, Kyuubi is forced to look at things as mortals comprehend them. Naruto feels things that Kyuubi was never meant to know – regret/despair/forgiveness/desperation – and now that Kyuubi not only has  _names_  for these things, but a vague idea of what they mean, it is irrevocably changed. Even if Kyuubi and Naruto ever escape each other, there is no going to back to what things used to be or might have been.

This is just how it is.

Kyuubi is another thing that Naruto doesn't have words for. Especially not words for Iruka-sensei or Kiba or Ero-sennin. Kiba doesn't know – Naruto doesn't  _want_  Kiba to know – even if the significance of the knowledge would probably go right over his stupid, dog-smelling head. Naruto doesn't talk to Ero-sennin about it because sometimes Naruto can  _smell_  Ero-sennin's fear when they're dealing with Kyuubi.

Kyuubi still lusts after the smell of human fear.

And Naruto would never talk to Iruka-sensei about it, because there's a bundle of feelings there that he doesn't want or know how to touch. Kyuubi killed Iruka-sensei's parents –  _delighted_  in killing them, even if it doesn't know which ones they were. If it had the opportunity to do so again, Kyuubi would kill them every time. Not slowly or cruelly – cruelty is another thing that Kyuubi was not meant to know but sometimes picks up from Naruto – but quickly and roughly and with relish, because death and destruction are what Kyuubi is  _for_. And Naruto is not Kyuubi (he is not, he is not, he is  _not_ ), but sometimes he understands that there is a  _rightness_  to killing, can feel it in his bones.

So, as long as that feeling is there, Naruto doesn't think he'll ever have the right to talk to Iruka-sensei about Kyuubi.

Instead, when it rains, him and Kyuubi scramble up to high places or run out into the woods, deep enough that (t)he(y) can risk getting naked without any chance of being seen, and rage at the sky.

Naruto doesn't know if regular foxes can howl, because he's pretty sure that that's just dogs and wolves, but when he throws back his head and  _yells_  there's a sound older than his own voice that joins him.

But there are other things to the rain, too. It's not just Kyuubi and burning and ancient, primal things. Sometimes, when the storm is gone but the rain is still coming down, Naruto feels old in a different way: a better, contented one. He puts his sopping clothes back on and sits on a tree branch, shivering, and is reminded that the world is full of good things, too. Sometimes he lays down on the ground, and if he sleeps with his cheek pressed to the dirt he makes sure to put a big leaf over the ear facing the sky so that fat drops of cold water don't leak in and wake him up.

In that kind of time, the-calm-after-the-storm-time, Naruto wishes for Sakura-chan. The things he feels for her swirl up and make him feel even more uncomfortable than the ones for Iruka-sensei do. He knows... He knows she doesn't think about him like  _that_ , but he wishes that he could bring her to sit with him in the rain, and for the sky to show her the things he'd never be able to say.

Thinking about Sakura-chan makes him feel sad.

Kyuubi doesn't understand what Naruto feels for Sakura-chan. But then, Naruto has cause to wonder if Kyuubi even understands "sad."

Life is a strange thing. And because it is strange and sad and stupid and  _complicated_ , Naruto goes to the one person in Konoha who he isn't afraid to just  _exist_  with, who, if he ever brought out Kyuubi, he would trust not to be afraid of it.

And, because it  _is_  still raining, Naruto doesn't knock on the front door, but scales the wall to the second story window like a ninja and then pounds on the window like a third-grader.

It's only a minute or two before the window is slammed open, but that's plenty of time for Naruto's fingers to go numbish, gripping the chilly, rough stone of the side of the building.

"What do  _you_  want, moron?" asks Sasuke.

Naruto grins and is glad to be wet and cold and alive.

000

October 21, 2005


	5. Little Monsters [Kakashi on Sakura]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kakashi wonders what kind of monster Sakura will grow up to be.

Kakashi doesn't hate anything; he's been a ninja too long for that. There are things, though, that he dislikes.

Many things.

One of these is when the members of the team he is responsible for training act like children instead of ninja.

They _are_ children. He knows this.

They've lead different lives than he did. He knows this as well.

Sakura especially.

He's not jealous, precisely. He wouldn't have wanted a childhood. That sort of thing comes back and makes you weak. (Which he is, of course. Kakashi knows that he is weak. But he doesn't want to be.) And Naruto's childhood was strange, he knows, and twisted through with threads of misery. And Sasuke's childhood was killed, he knows, and left bloody handprints on his brain.

But Sakura.

Sakura is still a child. And it makes him irritable.

It's not that she's stupid, because her intelligence burns when she cares to use it. It's not that she's naïve, precisely, because she's grown up in a hidden village and out of necessity watched people die. It's that she's never had to kill anyone herself.

(Neither has Naruto, but inside of him is something old and deep, with memories of the slaughter of thousands, and that makes it easier, makes it harder.)

(Neither has Sasuke, but he helped scrub the blood of his clan from the streets of the Uchiha district, which makes it easier, makes it harder.)

Part of it is that Sakura is a woman, or a girl destined for womanhood if she lives that long, and say what you will, but kunoichi are different. Privately, Kakashi doesn't believe that women are cut out to be murderers the way that men are. They have to kill parts of themselves to do it right.

Witness Anko.

That's also why, he believes, a disproportionate number of medic-nin are women. Women are creators down to the womb, and men… aren't. Women grow life inside themselves, from a collection of invisible cells to the squalling red brats that eventually emerge. Men contribute, of course, but it's not the same. A husband can press his ear to his wife's belly, try to hear the duel heartbeat, but it will never be inside him.

Women know exactly what it takes to create life, so Kakashi believes that it only makes sense for it to be harder for them to take it away again.

Unlike many of the genin this year, Sakura's parents are not shinobi. She's the first Haruno in three generations to graduate from the Academy.

(With a surname like Haruno, though. No wonder that clan doesn't appear to be cut out to be warriors.)

So Kakashi thinks about it, and tries to change things in his slow, convoluted ways. He picks on Sakura, to make her realize that she is weak, but compliments her on her chakra control so she'll know that she doesn't have to be. He tries, when he leads his team on missions, to be an even more perfect shinobi than usual. He tries to show no emotion at all, to show them that in a way all ninja are dead, because they have to be.

On Team 7's first _real_ mission, for instance. On that bridge. He hadn't meant for things to turn out quite that way.

(If Kakashi did hate things, killing children would probably make the list.)

It hurt him, to carry the dying man and lay him down next to the body of the boy. He did what he had to do, what was right and appropriate for the situation, which was to kill them both.

But.

Kakashi doesn't deal with mental "what ifs," doesn't replace the faces of the living with the faces of the dead, or replay situations in his mind and try to figure out what he could've done differently, could've done better. He had enough of that not long after Obito, when the Sharingan eye still leaked constantly, a liquid that slid down his face cooler and smoother than tears.

It's not that he wants to protect his team, protect Sakura. They volunteered to be ninja, and to try to shelter them now, when they have the most to learn, would be no less murder than any of the other deaths he's caused.

Shinobi lead complicated lives.

Sometimes, reading Jiraiya's stupid porn, he gets a wave of longing that pulls directly from his stomach, so strongly that it hurts. There are people who really _live_ like that. Well, perhaps not lives quite as soap operatic or porny as Jiraiya writes them, but the idea remains the same. There are people who live like that, and sometimes when he remembers that all of a sudden he wants it so badly that it aches.

Then he sneers at himself with an expressionless face and forces himself to continue reading, even if he'd rather throw the book against the opposite wall of the room.

Some people live like that, but they are weak and small and live lives without urgency or meaning, and when things get difficult they call people like _him_ , people from the hidden villages, to fix it. Life isn't nudity and silly hijinks and poetic declarations of love and hate and desire.

Life is ugly and blood and dirt and stupid and hurt, and if you're lucky somebody remembers you once you're gone.

It's not that Kakashi wants to protect Sakura from those truths. It's not that he doesn't think that she can handle it – there's a strength there. It's a quiet strength, and harder to see than Naruto's, than Sasuke's, but it's perhaps more tenacious than either of theirs. Sakura doesn't have the kind of burning strength to protect all that is good with the world as Naruto does, nor is hers cold or bitter or killing her from the inside, as Sasuke's does to him.

Sakura's strength is what it will take to survive, something that not nearly as many shinobi are as good at as they think they are.

Witness the thousands of unnumbered names on the memorial stone.

That untapped strength is why Kakashi lets Sakura get away mooning over Sasuke, who's barely enough of a human to notice. Why he lets Sakura let the boys of the team protect her, why he doesn't lecture her the way he does her teammates.

Naruto's childhood isn't necessarily over, won't necessarily ever be. Naruto has the sun inside of him along with the fox, and it offers what protection it can.

Sasuke's childhood has been over for years, and he's systematically destroyed all that he can of his younger self, leaving nothing but the shell which he must think is what the perfect ninja is supposed to be.

Sakura, though, doesn't nurse any demons at her breast. She will, once she needs to draw on that strength she hasn't had to yet, the one that will kill her enemies with speed and efficiency and blindfold her emotions. Sakura will have plenty of time to be an adult then, to find her coping mechanisms and which parts of her soul will need to die to make her a true shinobi.

She'll never be a happy monster, like Naruto.

She'll never be a faceless monster, like Sasuke.

Kakashi isn't the kind of man who allows himself the luxury of regret, so instead he only wonders what kind of monster Sakura will grow up to be.

000

June 7, 2005


	6. Wedding-Colored [Sakura]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Sasuke turns traitor, Sakura looks back on her childhood dreams and wonders how she could possibly have imagined her life as a shinobi without all the death.

When Sakura was a little girl, she dreamed of crystals and diamonds and the color white. She and Ino sat and giggled together, and Ino brought flowers from her parents' store that weren't fresh enough to sell, but were still beautiful enough for two little girls. Tucked away in the fields just inside the walls of Konoha, they lay in the tall grass under the sun and tossed their fantasies back and forth.

Young kunoichi start out with very different ideas about the lives of shinobi than boys do.

Ino's dreams, Sakura remembers, never faltered. They were always strong and true and full of Ino being faster than everyone else, her kunai hitting the target first, full of post-battle ceremonies in which the Hokage showered her with honor.

Sakura's dreams were different.

If thoughts about the blood of her enemies crossed Ino's mind, they never did Sakura's. She looks back on it now and wonders how she could possibly have imagined her life as a shinobi and managed to leave out all the death. Her fantasies were formless, and usually rode on the tail of Ino's fervent dreams.

This changed at age seven, when, chasing Ino through the woods and trying not to lose her faster friend, Sakura stumbled on a boy she didn't know.

She saw him first and hit the forest floor, using all her meager shinobi skills so that she'd be able to jump out and scare him, but he was too busy focusing to notice her presence.

He was throwing shuriken.

Sakura hadn't gotten to try that very much yet (her mother didn't like it when she brought home Ino's weaponry for practice), but even she could tell that he wasn't that great. He was short – maybe shorter than she was – and pale, with dark hair that made him look even whiter when the sunlight came in through the leaves and gleamed off his skin. He was sweating.

Sakura watched him throw, watched his face as he grew increasingly frustrated. She had to resist the urge to walk out and correct his form. She'd spent enough time watching Ino, after all, to know you didn't flick your wrist like that.

Then the boy threw a shuriken down near his feet and made a stupid noise that was half-yell, half-growl, half-whine.

Sakura's breath caught in her throat.

Then Ino was at her elbow, whispering, "Why'd you stop chasing me?" and Sakura only shrugged. Ino tilted her head and followed Sakura's gaze.

"Who's he?" she whispered.

"I dunno," murmured Sakura, wracking her brain for some glimpse of him from anywhere before. "Maybe he's in Yamada-sensei's class."

"Oh." They fell silent. The boy looked as though he was about to cry, and every tendon in Sakura's body pulled with the desire to let him know that he was not alone.

Then _someone_ was behind them, was just _there_ , and Sakura was too terrified to think straight, because that chakra wasn't the kind that belonged in Konoha. She felt Ino freeze beside her, and it was the first time in her life she thought she knew what dying was going to be like.

Then the person stepped around them with quiet footsteps, as though he was walking across the forest floor without stepping on any of the dead leaves.

"Sasuke," the man said quietly, and the boy turned around, scrubbing furiously at his eyes with the back of his sleeve.

"Aniki!"

And if every hair on Sakura's arms hadn't been standing straight up, she would have recognized that tone of voice. She'd given up, she'd made that ugly noise, she'd worn that same expression every time she lost to Ino and watched Ino try not to look disappointed.

She _knew_ this boy.

The man said something else, but Ino was tugging on Sakura's sleeve, and she let her best friend pull her away.

"Who _was_ that?" she asked.

" _That_ ," said Ino, proud to have the knowledge, "was Uchiha _Itachi_. My dad says that when he grows up, he's probably going to be our new Hokage."

Sakura licked her lips. "I don't want him as Hokage."

Ino shrugged and tried to look tough, then let it slip. "I don't either. He's too scary. I like Sandaime best."

"Yeah." Sakura nodded. "So who do you think the boy was?"

"Just his little brother. Sasuke? I think he said Sasuke."

"Sasuke," Sakura repeated. And starting there, her shinobi dreams began to change.

000

The next year, Uchiha Sasuke was put in Sakura's class, and this marked the first time in her life that someone besides Ino came first in her thoughts.

Sasuke didn't talk very much, but sometimes if she said "good morning" when they were the first people to class, he smiled back at her. He never played boys-chase-the-girls at recess, so Sakura stopped playing too.

Ino, who played girls-chase-the-boys and called flying tackles "kisses," gave Sakura the silent treatment for a week when she announced that she had better things to do at recess.

Sakura noticed, gradually, that she wasn't the only person who watched Sasuke. The Uzumaki boy did, too, when he wasn't busy pulling stupid pranks with that boy from the dog clan, or sleeping during tests with Shikamaru-kun.

Then, in the middle of that year, there was the Uchiha Clan Massacre, and Sasuke was absent from school for a month and a half. Sakura tried to find out where he lived, but the entire Uchiha district was closed down, and Sasuke was hidden in case his brother came back to finish the job. There were long memorial services for all the dead, and it didn't seem quite real to Sakura, because the only one of them she'd known was Sasuke, and it couldn't be that just one man had killed all those people.

Then she remembered what it was like in the woods when all Uchiha Itachi had to do was walk up behind her and she'd thought she was going to die.

She was glad that he wasn't going to be Hokage.

When Sasuke came back to school, she thought at first that he was a clone decoy and the real Sasuke was still tucked away somewhere, because the boy in Iruka-sensei's class wasn't a real person.

When she said good morning, he didn't even seem to realize she was there.

For the next few years she only saw him laugh or smile once, and that was at Naruto. It wasn't a nice laugh, but, with one failed henge, Naruto had produced more emotion from Sasuke than she had in months of trying.

In her sleep, her shinobi dreams finally began to take shape, and they were not pleasant.

Sometimes there was a man who at one point might have been Itachi, but who had grown to be everything bad in everyone, and in Sakura's dreams, he killed every person in Konoha.

Sometimes he wore Sasuke's laugh, the cold one directed at Naruto.

Sometimes Naruto was there, stupid scar-cheeked Naruto from class, and he watched her and tried to make her laugh and opened his mouth to ask her on dates but couldn't ever find the words.

Sometimes Naruto had red eyes, and she didn't know why.

Mostly, in her dreams, there was Sasuke. She had fantasies about protecting him on the battlefield, and then drawing him out and making him flesh again. One of her favorite daydreams was of the two of them in a small kitchen with a great big window facing the sunset, and she could make out only Sasuke's silhouette. She handed him a bowl of rice, and he said "thank you" and then they ate in silence.

She thinks now that, for a ninja, that kind of daydream showed an impressive lack of ambition.

Ino would have laughed: the kind of laugh that Sasuke used on Naruto.

And somewhere, in the end, mixing up Ino and herself and Sasuke and Naruto and who was who, she finally got the picture. It wasn't until after Sasuke and Naruto were made her teammates that she saw a side of Sasuke that would never be domesticated enough to serve dinner to, and a side of Naruto that was as bright and strong and true as any Hokage could ever hope to be. It wasn't until after she fought Ino, _finally_ fought Ino, and held her own.

With a terrible twist in her gut, Sakura realized that Sasuke wasn't hers.

She was closer to him, she knew, than almost anyone in Konoha. But even with her only competition being Naruto and Kakashi-sensei, she didn't stand a chance. When Sasuke looked at Sakura, he usually saw her standing there, and that was more than he gave most people. But he didn't always. There were too many times she'd offered him smiles only to have him see right through her, looking for something past the line where the trees met the sky.

Naruto, Sasuke always saw.

Kakashi-sensei, Sasuke always saw.

And those times when he pretended not to see Kakashi-sensei or Naruto, neither of them stood for it. Sakura fell silent and dropped her head and allowed herself to stay invisible, but Kakashi-sensei had more than once thrown _Icha Icha Paradise_ at Sasuke's head to get his attention, and Naruto had no problem yelling and punching and making a complete ass of himself just so Sasuke would look up and call him stupid.

Sasuke wasn't hers. Not ever. And now that he's gone, she has her final proof.

Sasuke thanked her, before he left. For just a moment when he saw her standing there, he looked surprised, and like something hurt him. And then he killed it, because killing things is what Sasuke does. He thanked her, knocked her out, and laid her unconscious on a park bench and kept walking.

Naruto was also left unconscious in his wake, but Naruto has the scars to show for it. Naruto could point to any number of the marks on his body and say, "this is where Sasuke saw me, and this is where Sasuke saw me, and this is where Sasuke saw me, and this is where he was kinda pissed about it."

Sakura has no such marks. Is it stupid for her to be so jealous of someone else's scars?

Sakura has no doubt that wherever he is right now, Sasuke bears Naruto's marks, too. If he were so inclined, Sasuke would be able to take off his shirt and point and say, "this is where the moron got lucky, and this is where I was a little bit too slow, and this is where he cheated with fox claws, and this one here barely even counts."

Naruto left his marks with fists and kicks and – knowing Naruto – probably teeth. Orochimaru left his mark in swishes of black that stand out almost... almost pretty, against Sasuke's paper white skin. Uchiha Itachi left his marks everywhere, in Sasuke's eyes and head and even the way he carries himself when walking. Sakura doesn't know what marks Kakashi-sensei left, or where, but she has no doubt that they're there.

And that leaves only her, really. Her and all the rest of Konoha, who saw Sasuke and the something in him, but were not seen back. Sakura left no mark on Sasuke, not that she can see.

She closes her eyes against the shattering of her crystal wedding-colored dreams and tries not to feel bitter.

000

October 12, 2005


	7. Blood = Thicker [Sasuke]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sasuke is going to die, but he's going to take Itachi with him, and then if there's any justice in the world Kakashi will pluck out his eye and burn it, so that there's nothing left of the Uchiha clan at all.

Sasuke has three things that no one is allowed to touch but him.

Itachi, who is his kill. No one else has the right.

Naruto, who is his rival, is his best friend. Who would be, if he allowed himself to think the words, his equal.

Sakura, who is simply his, since the day that Iruka-sensei announced that they were on the same team and she shrieked "Sasuke-kun!" with such delight.

Itachi has been his since the day everything died.

Naruto has been his since not much after that, when he first realized that they might be alike.

Sakura has been his in word since she first made it clear that she loved him, in the same way all the other girls loved him, which was stupidly. She's been his in deed since he found her, only her, waiting for him on the bridge before he left for Sound.

She asked to go with him.

He would never do that to her. But, for just a moment, he was tempted. Then he killed it, because avengers can only have room in their hearts for one thing, and Sasuke's one thing will be Itachi until he watches his brother's chest rise and fall for the last time.

Konoha tempted him too much. Not when he was nine and ten, and too numb to do anything but train. Not when he was eleven, and full of contempt for everyone who was less than himself.

But when Sasuke turned twelve, things changed. There was Iruka-sensei, who showed him that blank, smiling concern that he'd gotten from all the adults since his clan was massacred. But Iruka-sensei's blank, smiling concern was only on the top, and Sasuke thinks that he has always been good at seeing underneath the underneath.

Inside of Iruka-sensei there is this quietly bleeding wound, this obsession with helping everyone who passes him, with keeping the village's children safe.

Konoha is a hidden village, after all. Iruka-sensei will never lack children who are hurt and alone. But he'll never be able to save them, not all of them.

Some, like Sasuke, make it perfectly clear that they have no desire to be saved. None whatsoever. At all.

And he wasn't hurt when eventually Iruka-sensei got the picture and backed off.

There was Kakashi-sensei, who is the third person alive to have any trace of Uchiha blood in his veins. It's stolen blood, yes. Only what came with the eye. But it's there.

Besides Itachi, Kakashi-sensei is all that Sasuke has left of his clan.

Kakashi-sensei, like most ninja, is probably certifiably insane. But sometimes, late at night, during missions, when Sasuke was sitting watch, just far enough away from the others to be alone, sometimes Kakashi would come and sit not too far from him, just close enough to make Sasuke not alone, and it was like having an Uchiha ghost there to keep him company.

The problem with Sasuke's clan is that they're _all_ ghosts, and sometimes he wants to touch someone who's still alive.

He'll touch Itachi, of course. He'll squeeze his fingers around Itachi's throat until it squishes, until he feels bones shift and crack under his grip.

(Like the way Itachi broke his wrist during their last encounter. Exactly like that. Except with Itachi's neck.)

There was Sakura, the millionth stupid girl to make him a bento box with a sugary note inside. Sakura, with her amazing chakra control but weak chakra supply, with her petty childish vanity and surprising womanly strength.

It's not the kind of strength that allows her to _hit_ things well, or anything useful. That other strength. The one she used to use to calm he and Naruto down, to force Kakashi-sensei to step in, to make Naruto silent and ashamed, to make himself wish he was far away.

Sakura is possibly the only ninja he knows who is certifiably _sane_.

She loves him.

If Sasuke had not made his heart so small, there might even have been something he could have done about that.

Finally, of course, there was Uzumaki Naruto.

All the careful insults that Sasuke whispered, all the carefully timed entrances to show Naruto up, everything he did calculated to make sure that Naruto would always hate him.

And then he had to go and fuck things up by saving Naruto when it counted.

He knew it was different on the bridge. With Haku.

Sasuke isn't the kind of boy to learn and remember his opponent's names, but he remembers Haku.

Sasuke's also not the kind of boy to see himself in other people's eyes. So what if Haku lived and died blindly devoted to one man?

Sasuke's devoted his life to a man in a rather different fashion, after all.

He knew it was different on the bridge.

Because on that bridge, just for a second, Sasuke gave up Itachi. For possibly the first time in his life. He existed, in that single moment, purely to take down Haku and to protect Naruto.

Just for a minute.

So it's Naruto's fault, really. If Konoha hadn't tempted him so much, Sasuke never would have had to leave.

If Iruka-sensei had never given him that _look_ when they passed in the street.

If Kakashi-sensei had had an eye from any other clan in Konoha. If he hadn't always known exactly when to let Sasuke be and when to tie Sasuke to a tree and make him listen.

If Sakura had been as shallow and witless as she'd first appeared, instead of so goddamn _right_ about so many things. If she'd just been chasing a pretty face, and not come to love him in that way that he never wanted to be loved again.

If Naruto hadn't been able to get under his skin like that. If Naruto had just shut up. If Naruto had admitted to being second-best. If Naruto had been able to watch his own damn back instead of fucking up all the time. If Naruto hadn't kept showing Sasuke up every time it _mattered_.

If Naruto hadn't kept acting like they were goddamn _friends_ instead of enemies.

And if Sasuke hadn't needed that friendship quite so badly.

But Itachi killed that, too. Because there was a damn good _reason_ that Sasuke no longer allowed himself the luxury of friends, and it wasn't just healthy paranoia.

If Itachi hadn't been so _perfect_ with the mangenkyou sharingen.

It wasn't just the temptation that Konoha offered. It was the memories.

Sasuke is sick of living his life for ghosts. Ghosts who remind him that Iruka-sensei is a crap shinobi who works with children because he's incompetent on missions. Who remind him that everyone Kakashi cares about is dead, and that there are reasons for that. Who remind him that Sakura loves him because all the other girls love him, and girls only compete about stupid things like boys. Who remind him that Naruto is dead-last, is completely without talent, is _better_ than Sasuke.

Ghosts who remind him that no matter what kind of moronic jackass Naruto may be, he doesn't deserve to die just so that Sasuke can possess the mangenkyou sharingnen.

Ghosts who list their names over and over, and how they died, and in what order, and who died quickly and painlessly and who lingered. Ghosts who whisper Itachi's name into Sasuke's ear, until whenever the wind blows that name is all he hears.

_Itachi. Itachi. Itachi. Sasuke, you owe us Itachi._

Sasuke likes to think that, someday, he'll go back to Konoha. That Iruka-sensei will still be a teacher. That Kakashi-sensei will still show up to even the most urgent meetings three hours late. That Sakura will still blush when he meets her eyes. That Naruto will still smell like ramen and threaten impotently to kick his ass.

If he's honest, if he looks underneath the underneath, Sasuke knows that there is no such thing as coming back. Itachi is too big, too strong, and knows his little brother all too well.

The best that he can hope for is double suicide.

Sasuke is going to die, but he's going to take Itachi with him, and then if there's any justice at all Kakashi will pluck out his eye and burn it, so that there's nothing left of the Uchiha clan at all.

Sasuke's only wish, the wish he doesn't want to make because his heart should be too small, is for Naruto and Sakura. He wants them to know, before he dies. That they're his.

That if he'd been any other boy with any other life, they'd have been enough. They'd have outweighed Itachi.

Sasuke's bastard, traitorous heart wishes that they'd been able to save him.

000

August 5, 2005


	8. Celestial Bodies [Sakura]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sakura refuses to believe in inevitability, but shinobi lead complicated lives.

Sakura is not a celestial body. In her world, Naruto is the sun and Sasuke is the moon, and she is only a very small part of the universe.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. For a very long time, Sasuke was her sun, and she revolved around him on a deeper level than she likes to admit.

Before that, her sun was Ino.

Now, where perhaps there should be Tsunade-sensei or Lee-kun, there's only Naruto's idiot face and shock of blond hair and promises that he'll die to keep.

She's not in love with him. Not the way that he looks at her when her back is turned and wants her to be.

She's not in love with him. Not the way that, in one stupid moment, she would have forsaken everything she loved and followed Sasuke to the Sound.

She's not in love with him. Not the way that, when they were children, Ino could step onto the playground and wave her hand and everyone would shut up, as if she was going to say something important.

She's not in love with him. Not even the way that, sometimes when night falls, she and Lee-kun find themselves inexplicably in the same place, and they hold each other so carefully, because they're both strong enough to break.

It doesn't matter that most of the village is stupid, that to the adults Naruto is a monster and to the children he's dead-last. With the exception of Nara Shikamaru, Sakura is the smartest shinobi she knows, and if her mind tells her that Naruto is a hero, that Naruto is the sun, she has no reason to question it.

When Sasuke was the sun, she wrote him poetry. _Poetry_. She still has some of it. Not because she would ever give it to him (she hadn't been brave or stupid enough to give him poetry even when her crush had been at its most ridiculous zenith), but because when she holds it in her hands and reads her inelegant rhymes, it helps her to remember better times. The days when Sasuke was Sasuke without being Orochimaru, before Naruto followed Jiraiya-sama out of Konoha, before she became Tsunade-sensei's apprentice.

She thinks that, when she wrote that poetry, she was a child. Never mind that she was a kunoichi who had killed men, she was a _child_.

What right had Orochi-fucking- _maru_ had to come along and claim Sasuke as his own, Sasuke who was her sun? Because wherever Orochimaru went, eventually his team would follow, no matter how many decades it had been since they were a team. What right had Orochimaru had to decide that Sasuke was his, and _why_ had Jiraiya-sama and Tsunade-sensei followed suit with Naruto and herself?

Because they had to.

She reads scrolls from the Hokage's library, legends and techniques and histories, and nothing in them says anything about this, about the inevitability of history repeating itself.

Sakura refuses to believe in inevitability. Sasuke had a fucking _choice_ before he ran off to join Orochimaru. He's _always_ had a choice, and he's always picked Itachi. It doesn't matter how many years may pass, Sasuke will always be five-years-old, trying desperately to please his father and equal his brother and live up to his mother's sweetly expectant smile. Sakura knows all this without knowing it. Sasuke is infinitely less mature than Naruto, because Naruto _grows_. He learns and changes and grows stronger and (although it's not really an adjective she can properly apply to Naruto) _wiser_. Sasuke gets stronger, but his brain is static:

_Kill Itachi,_ it says. _Be the best. Don't let them touch you._

She spent too much time desperately wanting Sasuke not to have at least a vague idea of how his mind works.

Sasuke. Her second sun. Only Naruto has more gravity.

Ino was her first sun. Yamanaka Ino, who found a little girl with pink hair, a little girl from a family of inept shinobi, who believed that the trait that would most influence her life was going to be the size of her forehead.

Ino was the first person to ever make Sakura believe that she could be strong. Ino, who, when they were small and Sakura loved her, was the most perfect kunoichi there could be. Yamanaka Ino was equally at home arranging flowers and jumping from trees flinging shuriken, equally at home flirting with boys twice her age and holding kunai to the throats of men.

Ino taught Sakura about strength long before Naruto or Sasuke or Rock Lee came along to offer a refresher course.

Sakura remembers being eight-years-old, wearing Ino's ribbon in her hair and clumsily pressing her lips to Ino's cheek, because Ino was her best friend and she loved her more than anyone and that was what best friends did.

She still remembers the expression on Ino's face when she announced that she had a crush on a boy. All the other girls had crushes on boys. Even Ino said that she had one, though she'd giggled and never told Sakura who it was. Sakura hadn't understood that, to Ino, boys were only a game. That to Ino, Sakura wasn't allowed to have a crush on a boy. That Ino considered herself to be Sakura's boy. It wasn't something she'd understood until much, much too late, after Ino had fought back the only way she could, and for the first year, love-of-Sasuke had been nothing but a ball that they threw back and forth at each other's heads.

And so what started as a mistake became a long, complicated fight, and somewhere along the way Sakura forgot why it had began and fell in love with Sasuke after all, stupid fucking _Sasuke_ , and part of her loves him still.

Ino isn't the girl she used to be, anymore than Sakura is. They still see each other all the time, and now that Sasuke is gone things are different all over again. They're building from the ground up, but changed. Ino no longer wants to be Sakura's boy, and even if she did, Sakura would no longer let her. It's not that she doesn't love Ino. She does.

She does.

It's that Sakura never wants a boy again. Never wants to have to depend on someone else. She wants love, someday (of course she does, because she's nothing but a stupid little girl, a stupid little girl who still spends too much styling her hair, and all stupid little girls want handsome princes to carry them away), but not until she's ready for it.

Sakura has to deem herself strong enough before she can love again, strong enough not only to protect herself, but everyone else as well.

She needs to be strong enough to protect Ino, even though Ino doesn't believe that she needs anyone's protection.

She needs to be strong enough to protect Sasuke, because if anyone's ever needed saving, it's obvious that he does.

She needs to be strong enough to protect Naruto from the fox, and Naruto is the only one who's ever grateful.

Naruto.

It kills her, how much she loves him. She doesn't know when it happened. The exact moment isn't obvious, the way it was for Ino and Sasuke. Naruto wormed his way in to the heart that she'd tried to board up against all new intruders. He must have left a path in his wake, for Lee to follow.

Rock Lee isn't one of her suns, he never will be, but she loves him just the same. She's grown fond of the way he's a caricature of a warrior, of his stupid green spandex, of his ridiculous dedication to his teacher. She's to the point now, that if Lee actually _did_ something about his ferocious eyebrows, she'd be disappointed.

All of her loves are very confusing people.

Ino, with all her strength and pride, who went from an incredible child to an empty-headed teenager and is now growing into a beautiful, competent woman. A true kunoichi.

Lee, since the first time he blew her kisses and struck his "nice guy" pose. The first time he promised, in the way that only children can, to be there for her whenever she needed him. The way he meant it then, and still means it now.

Sasuke, the stupid fuck who betrayed them all. Sasuke, who has been too wrapped up in himself for all this time to know that there are people who _care_ about him.

Naruto. With his relentless "Sakura-chan!" and "Sasuke-teme!" Her third sun revolving around her second, because what they are is something more and less than she could name.

Kunoichi are taught about sex at a much earlier age and much more in-depth than their male counterparts. For male shinobi, sex is something that should be gotten out of their systems and not allowed to interfere with missions. For kunoichi, sex is just another weapon.

That extra training always made her wonder, during Naruto and Sasuke's fights. The intensity between them lacks the purity of children's games. It's not a thought she's ever shared with anyone (the _look_ on Naruto's face if she were to say something like that), but it still lingers in the back of her mind.

Just as she loves Naruto and Sasuke in different ways, so they must care about each other in ways different than they care about her.

Naruto, pleading with his eyes.

Sasuke, blank as paper, but hands so careful on the few occasions that they touched her.

The two of them beating the fuck out of each other with those awful grins.

Ino, bossing Shikamaru and Chouji around, because she loves them.

Lee deferring to Neji with that _look_ burning in his eyes, guarding Tenten's back as they fight. Because, in a way that he could express only with actions, he loves them.

Tsunade-sensei and Jiraiya-sama, still chasing that snake-faced bastard after all this time.

Even Kakashi. She's seen the two framed pictures over his bed. Kakashi, with his mask pulled up over his nose and his left-eye—courtesy of Sasuke's dead clan—well covered. Kakashi, who lives alone in a small apartment, whose best friends are the dogs he summons. Sakura knows that everyone from Kakashi's team is dead.

Shinobi lead complicated lives.

As time moves inevitably forward, Sakura is determined to keep her suns burning bright. Because they are hers. Because she loves them.

Because she knows that every time Tsunade-sensei looks at her, she sees only herself, and Sakura always wants to yell, "I am not you!" until she can make her Hokage believe it.

Because she is _not_ Tsunade, and Sasuke is _not_ Orochimaru, and Naruto is _not_ Jiraiya.

They are their own people.

And she's going to prove it.

God damn it, she's going to prove it.

000

June 17, 2005


End file.
